sea partner

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lilcola99

5-Year Member
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Jun 23, 2010
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My sons sea patner has been changed. Is this common? Why would they have the mids pick a sea patner and then change the partner? :confused:
 
It happened to our DS during his first sea term. He's engine and was assigned to a MSC oiler. His sea partner, a deckie, wasn't allowed to sail on an oiler for his first sea term, so they had to swap for another engine cadet.
 
Im a bit confused. The deckie needed an engine cadet anyway, so why arent the sea partners assigned as a couple if they requested to go out together? Your DS's deckie swapped for a different engine afterall. I was under the impression one from deck and one from engine .
 
lilcola99 said:
Im a bit confused. The deckie needed an engine cadet anyway, so why arent the sea partners assigned as a couple if they requested to go out together? Your DS's deckie swapped for a different engine afterall. I was under the impression one from deck and one from engine .
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The problem was that the ship that was available for him wouldn't take first sea term deckies for safety reasons (they would take second sea term deckies). They ended up putting two engine cadets on his ship and two deck cadets on another ship. It's not the normal scheduling. It really worked out fine - DS was worried that he would have difficulty with the sea projects that involved deck work since he didn't have a deckie sea partner, but the deck officers on the ship were great at helping both him and his sea partner with the deck assignments. And he really liked his last-minute sea partner. BTW, for second sea term he went out with his originally assigned sea partner. They're due back into the US this weekend.

I'm writing a "parent's perspective" of sea year that I hope to post on here in the next day or so - hopefully it will help with a lot of the same questions and concerns I had a year and a half ago (was it really July 2010 when DS first shipped out?!:eek:)
 
Yikes girl, it's been a long time since we've "talked". Hope you well. Can you believe our guys are almost done w/ 2nd sea year? The first year when ds was a plebe it felt like forever. This past year has flown and only 2 more left. Take care girl! Looking forward to your post.
 
The first rule about sea year is that the rules are not hard and fast. DD's sea partners have been a mix, sometimes deck sometimes engine. She liked having an engine partner because they had similar schedules and actually got to do things together. At one point, she was the 3rd engine cadet on a ship for 2 weeks. She needed about 10 more days and the ship was willing to take her.

DD's rule about choosing a sea partner, when you actually get to choose, is don't go with a good friend. The stresses of sea year have been known to ruin friendships. That said, other mids do well partnering with good friends. So your mid's mileage may vary.
 
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